A Senior Portrait Isn’t a Piece of Paper!

A Senior Portrait isn’t a piece of paper, it is an image that captures the essence of the person, enhances the outer beauty that we can see, while revealing the spirit that makes that person who they are.  A portrait is a creation, an interpretation of a person by a profession photographer that has spent years learning how to not only make someone look as beautiful as they can be, but show a little of who they are.

With so many people now buying better cameras and taking more snapshots at home some people become confused about why they can get an 8×10 at the one hour lab for $3.00, but when they call photography studios an 8×10 portrait can be anywhere from $30 to $80.  This is because you are not buying the paper, you are buying what has been created that goes on the paper.  When a woman buys a pair of shoes for $80 there is only a few dollars worth of material in them because you are paying for what the designer did with that material and how it makes your feet look.

While we all want beautiful portraits of ourselves and our children we all seek to find the best value for our money, but asking how much is an 8×10 as you call one photographer after another isn’t the best way to find the best value.  First, you must see the work the photographers creates.  Look at portraits created in a session, not random single portraits of different people.  It is important to look at entire sessions of a single person because many new photographers will show the 4 or 5 of the best photos they have ever taken, however the average session taken by these photographers don’t look like the images they show.  The best value in Senior Portraits, just like the shoes you buy, the jeans you wear, the restaurant you go to for a special occasion, the car you drive, will rarely be the cheapest.

~ by jeffsmithbooks on June 12, 2010.